Electronic skew adjustment in an ink jet printer

摘要

A system is described for compensating for misalignments in an ink jet printer having an ink jet print head cartridge that includes a heater chip. The system includes determining alignment adjustment information related to the misalignments in the ink jet printer, loading the alignment adjustment information into a volatile memory device on the heater chip, and accessing the alignment adjustment information from the volatile memory device. The system also includes generating nozzle control signals based at least in part on the alignment adjustment information. The nozzle control signals are selectively provided to resistive heating elements in the heater chip, thereby heating ink in ink chambers adjacent the heating elements and ejecting ink droplets toward a print medium. The timing of the nozzle control signals is adjusted based upon the amount of misalignment in the various components of the printer and print head. The timing adjustments are applied to groups of nozzles so that dots printed by one group are substantially vertically aligned with dots printed by another group, thereby reducing the amount of perceptible skew in the printed output.